ALPHA 1 gimble teardown

[THEFERMANATOR]

I'm redoing my ALPHA 1 gimble in my SEARAY project, so I brought the camera with me today to take some pics and maybe help others in the future.

Here's a shot of the outdrive with the trim pin removed from the outdrive. The arrows show the 6 nuts that hold the out drive on. Make sure that you have it in forward before trying to remove the outdrive(don't ask).

This is with the outdrive removed. The red shows the screws that hold the sender and limit switch on, and the green is where the hinge pins are(the MERCRUISER tool worked great for removing these).

You may encounter the same problem I did, one of the trim limit screws was froze in. Rather than break the screw off, you can take a screwdriver and bust the outer ring of the limit switch out and then slide the switch out. Then you can use some heat and penetrant to take the screw out when there is enough of it sticking out to grip onto.

These are the hinge pins and plastic washers that go in between the gimble and helmet.

Here's the helmet laying loose, you'll need a long 1/4" drive extension and a 5/16" swivel socket to loosen the hose clamps that hold the bellows onto the gimble before the helmet will come out.

Here's the inside of the gimble with the helmet out. You can vagely make out where the last person used excessive force in installing the gimble bearing(dings all around the edge of the bearing).

So an hour later this is what I resorted to in removing the bearing. I took a drill and drilled holes through each side of the bearing to split it(red circles), and then used a slide hammer to remove it.

What was left of the gimble bearing.

Here's the helmet on the bench.


And my top notch trim rams.

To be continued...............

[frayed_knot]

Nice, I'll be able to use this in the future.

[macojoe]

Yet another reason I went bracket!!

But you doing a bang up job there!!

when you finished we will this to the how to section!!

[cfelton]

I did the same thing ta mine. I used a 1 inch wire brush on a drill, cleaned it up real good.I had to drill out one hinge pin,man it was tuff! Make sure you cut the water supply hose the right length. Its a little tight trying to get it all back together. Wish Id had that boot expantion tool. If I do it again Ill get one.

[THEFERMANATOR]

I got the boot expansion tool already. I don't think the old SEARAY would look that streamlined anymore with a bracket and my 250 YAMAHA back there(considered it though ;D). I'm gonna try 3000 psi of water first to clean it and see how much comes off, after that I'll break out the grinders with some scotch-brite and wire brush's. Then paint and reassemble. The gimble bearing was the worst part of the teardown though, most of the languange shouldn't be repeated here.

Here's the link to the directions for teardown.
http://www.outdrives.com/merc/mdtips03.html

[THEFERMANATOR]

Well I got a little more done today. I used a pressure washer to knock the loose stuff off and then I used some diamond embedded foam pads on the end of my die grinder(can get em at LOWES, HOME DEPOT, and even WAL-MART). And finished up with a 1" round wire brush on the end of a high speed drill. Came out pretty nice afterwards.


And here's a couple of pics of the trim sender wires where they go through the gimble.

looking straight in, let's you see how tucked in there they are.

Then my day came to a terrible ending. This pic shows why it is so crucial to get the hose clamps placed properly. The previous person who redid the gimble didn't get the hose clamp and it allowed the clamp to contact the gimble when it was trimmed down and it cracked the helmet where the exhaust bellows goes. Not a real big deal, but cracks have to be fixed in aluminum or else they'll spread to other areas in the future. You can make out the crack in between the red lines.

[macojoe]

Looking great!!

Keep at it you will get her done!!

[THEFERMANATOR]

And the continuation. I tried my best to point out the clamp placement as it is very critical in preventing problems later on.
Here is a pic of the helmet with the drive bellows installed onto it. You can see where the clamp has to sit at. The green arrow shows the retaining lip that holds the bellows on. Make sure that it pops into the corresponding groove in the helmet and the gimble side.

Here's a pic of the clamp placement of the water feed line.

Here's a pic showing the clamp placement on the gimble side for the drive and shift bellows.

Here's a pic looking straight up at the clamp placement for the water feed line on the helmet side. The clamp fit best with the screw side going towards the port side.

This is your friend when it comes to the exhaust bellows installation.

This is the clamp placement for the exhaust bellows clamp gimble side.

And this pic is looking straight up at the exhaust bellows clamp. It is EXTREMELY crucial that you DO NOT put the screw side of the clamp going downward. I know this is the easiest way, but it WILL cause damage to the unit if you do.

And the finished product.

[macojoe]

Nice work!!

I paided someone when mine let go! I was brand new then and had no idea what to do!

[THEFERMANATOR]

Here is my latest OH SH!T for the day. The cable end for the shift cable that moves the shift shaft arm wasn't chamfered inside. You can see the one on the left isn't chamfered and the old one on the right is chamfered. This was enough to prevent the cable from moving the shift arm into the reverse position and would bind up the cable and would stall the engine because of the shift interrupt switch was being pulled all the way to one side. This is a true OH SH!T to find out after you have went through all the trouble of painting and putting everything together to have to pull it all back apart to put the old end back on and then reassemble.